Chapter 667 – Dreamweaver World 5

Once at the office, Colt broke from his usual routine and shuffled the duty assignments, seizing the opportunity to station himself at the death registration counter.

His expression remained composed as he organized the registration terminal on the communications network equipment, but his fingers trembled ever so slightly when no one was looking.

Whenever the medical center or police station sent over a deceased person’s identity chip, he would use the pretense of verifying information to quietly pocket a few of the chips, while simultaneously delaying the corresponding death registration processes in the system.

After he returned home from work, Mo Lan would cast Psychic Magic, reviewing Colt’s entire day of memories as though flipping through a book.

Upon discovering that the identity information intercepted today still contained no suitable candidates, she would implant a carefully woven new memory into Colt’s mind.

In Colt’s memory, several menacing gang members had come to pick up the goods, but finding no satisfactory “merchandise,” they mocked him coldly and even threatened to cancel their arrangement.

The next morning, Colt arrived at the office with a faint headache.

The fabricated memory left him feeling immense pressure. He quickly destroyed all the identity chips he had secretly stashed the day before and completed the full death registrations in the system.

Then, as usual, he began a new round of “screening,” quietly pocketing select chips from the newly delivered batch of deceased persons’ identity chips to bring home.

This cycle continued for several days, until one rainy night, Mo Lan finally found an ideal target among the chips Colt had brought back.

Sina — one week shy of her fifteenth birthday, a registered orphan at the Third Welfare Home in the old district.

The girl in the file photo had deep brown curly hair and a somewhat pale face, yet her eyes were full of hope.

Yesterday, this girl who had been about to venture into the dream realm was struck and killed on the spot by an out-of-control cargo speeder while on her way to the new district to rent a communications watch so she could look up information about the dream realm online.

Since no relatives had come to claim the body, it was still stored in the morgue at New District Central Hospital, scheduled for cremation one week after the death registration was completed.

Mo Lan’s fingertips gently brushed across the identity chip, still stained with traces of blood.

After confirming that Sina’s social connections were minimal, she decisively wiped the blood from the chip and affixed it to the inside of her left wrist.

She used the Book of Cards to create a {Synthetic Skin Magic Sticker Card} — a skin-colored sticker perfectly matching the surrounding complexion, which she placed over the chip.

Even the finest textures blended seamlessly with her natural skin. Not even a professional medical scanner would detect anything unusual.

Finally, Mo Lan wove new memories for Colt.

The gang members had taken the chip away, satisfied, and told him to properly tie up loose ends regarding this identity chip. They would return next month to check for new “merchandise.”

Mo Lan went to the hospital morgue that same night and took Sina’s body.

Then, one by one, she tracked down every medical staff member who had participated in the rescue attempt that day, using Psychic Magic to meticulously alter their memories from “resuscitation failed, patient deceased” to “the injured party regained consciousness and left the hospital on her own.”

Those modified memories merged seamlessly into their original recollections.

The duty nurse remembered the girl struggling to pull out her IV line. The intern recalled her stumbling at the doorway as she left. Even the security guard in the surveillance room “remembered” seeing a thin figure wrapped in a bloodstained jacket disappear through the side door of the emergency hall.

The clerk who had delivered the chip was lying in bed at his apartment, tossing and turning, feeling as though he had forgotten something important.

Mo Lan’s magic gently erased the parts of his memory concerning Sina’s chip.

It was the same at the welfare home. From a nurse’s memories, Mo Lan saw that on the day of Sina’s accident, the nurse had contacted the welfare home’s director. Mo Lan went to control the director, deleted the communication records, then replaced the memories in the minds of the director and the orphans — swapping the death notification with a memory of Sina miraculously surviving the car accident but never returning after leaving the hospital.

The case records in the police station’s electronic archives were also modified by Mo Lan through controlling the officer on duty. The speeder accident report was changed from “victim killed, driver at fault” to “driver killed, victim miraculously survived.”

When dusk descended once more, Mo Lan returned to Colt’s apartment and reviewed his memories from the day.

In his memories, the identity archive system displayed Sina’s file page, the latest modification record glowing faintly.

The line “Injured in traffic accident, discharged after basic treatment” had replaced the original death declaration. The system log showed the modification time as 10:17 AM today — looking just like a routine file update.

After confirming there were no issues, Mo Lan tampered with every memory in Colt’s mind related to this matter.

The anxiety of hoarding chips, the guilt of forging records, the fear of dealing with gangsters — all were deleted one by one.

In their place was an entirely new set of memories.

Colt had recently been promoting a position rotation system to demonstrate his diligence, and personally manning the death registration counter was simply to set an example for his subordinates.

He would not remember that his desk drawer had once concealed over a dozen identity chips from the deceased. He would not remember the gang members who visited late at night. And he certainly would not remember that a girl named Sina had been “brought back from the dead” by his hand.

Meanwhile, in the civil administration center’s system, the identity of “Sina” had become that of an orphan who had just miraculously survived a car accident — a perfect blank slate.

The next morning, after Colt left for work, Mo Lan quietly slipped out of his home as well.

She appeared in a deserted alley on the edge of the old district, drank the transformation potion, and changed into Sina’s appearance before heading toward the new district.

Her first stop was the Federal Canaan Administrative Office. She held her wrist against the machine at the entrance, and the metal barrier swung open.

Mo Lan walked in and joined the queue at the electronic account self-service terminal.

Thanks to all the local human memories she had read during this time, she navigated everything along the way as naturally as any proper native would.

A few minutes later, staring at the “0” in the electronic account, she suddenly felt a twinge of regret.

Why hadn’t she searched a bit longer and found an identity with some assets?

Now she would have to figure out a way to earn some money before she could even rent a place to live in the new district.

She recalled what she had seen in the welfare home director’s memories — children at the welfare home had to find their own livelihood once they turned sixteen.

They generally chose to seek opportunities in the dream realm, selling the equipment, materials, and currency they earned there to others in exchange for Federal coins to improve their lives in the real world.

Sina had originally planned to do the same.

Mo Lan intended to enter the dream realm on the night of Sina’s fifteenth birthday. There were still three days to go.

After a moment’s thought, she decided to use the Book of Cards to create some magical materials found in the dream realm and sell them for money. Within these three days, she would settle herself in the new district under Sina’s identity.

That evening, the invisible Mo Lan set out once more… (End of Chapter)